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Water flowing downhill is an optimisation process. Do you mind telling me what does that optimise? In other words, what is the objective function? Water flowing downhill because of gravity. It needs not optimise anything.
Of course, certain intrinsic properties may make some non-living things survive better than other (long half lives, water resistance, etc). But you don't need to give them any objective as though they have a mind. When you say 'optimisation,' you ascribe one more objective to something within a set of constraints, and by doing this you imply that there are some objectives that are more 'desirable' than others.
I understand that it is just the human mind that... (read 384 more words →)
Konkvistador says:
Evolution is a[n] optimization process.
Evolution is too slow. Moreover, evolution embraces the greedy algorithm:
evolution has no foresight, and only takes the next greedy local step.
Evolution works but that doesn't mean it is optimal. It is, I believe, inefficient.
Timtyler says:
The whole world is an optimisation process.
Huh? Does that include the human mind? The horrible geography and weather in some places of the world where very few species can survive? Natural disasters?
This post (anthropomorphic optimism) may interest you.
Just some questions.
1) Why do most probabilities here in percentage divisible by 5? Is there any reason that they be, I assume, rounded to the nearest 5? If this is the case, the 65% probability means "between 62.5 and 67.75", right? Um, maybe not. I bet some people here round the probabilities to the nearest 10.
2) I would love to see some kind of distribution as well. Can we say something like:
I am 90% confident that the probability that event X happens is between 35% and 50%, but my best bet is 45%.
The distribution is skewed here, and it should be right-skewed if the probabilities involve, say, mutual agreements from a large number of independent parties. I'm not sure about the others, but it helps me imagine the picture.
3) hic Can someone make a prediction whether some of us here are time travelers (from the future)? [Got the joke?]
4) Can someone make predictions about predictions (including self)? Please.
I've never seen an academic article saying that the world is maximising entropy (in the thermodynamic sense). I understand that the second law of thermodynamics hints that entropy is a fairly closed system should increase over time.
When a process (rather) consistently increases (or decreases) the value of a variable, it doesn't necessarily optimise it! Like when you see a nation's positive GDP growth from year to year, you can't say the nation is optimising its GDP. It is tempting, but still it is not a sufficient condition to say... (read more)